Saturday, June 1, 2013

Searching for clues...

For the first time since he could remember, al-Rubaysh felt safe walking down the street. No one in Bosaso recognised him. During his two days in port he had managed to carry out his enquiries in the open, audaciously and without the threat of drone attacks. Widespread fear among Majeerteen fishermen, aroused by the recent spate of attacks on pirate skiffs, helped loosen the tongues of those he consulted. The conspiracy to foment jihad in Puntland through a terror campaign at sea, a plan he’d dreamed up, was working fine. So far he had gleaned useful bits of information about Mehemet Abdul Rahman. Now he needed to connect the dots.

It was eight o’clock in the morning and pedestrians were streaming through traffic, moving swiftly through the shadows of the old quarter’s cavernous streets. Every building on Osman Street, at least the corners and cornice mouldings, was painted a candy shade of pastel. Fragrant whiffs of frankincense poured through open doorways. And at each cross street a clutch of shops displayed sacks of fresh spices. Rubaysh was on his way to find an old man who once worked for the American.

There was no need to bluff his way through harbour security today. He’d been told to ask around on the west side of the port under the shade trees, where the fishing boats were kept. In due course he found the old man leaning against his skiff and using a fishbone needle and nylon cord to mend a damaged fishing net. Tawny, weatherbeaten and misshapen, his true age was hard to fathom. He was wearing a pair of tortoiseshell Wayfarer sunglasses that when removed revealed a pair of pterygiums growing in the corners of the his eyes, the result of too much sun.

“Good morning,” said Rubaysh, smiling and extending his hand in a salesmanlike manner. “Are you Mohamud Farole?”

“What do you want?” asked the old man, bluntly refusing the offer of a handshake. “I don’t talk to strangers.”

“My name is Aden Ali, and I’m from Hodeida Port Authority.”

“I know the port well. Never seen your face before.” While the old man continued to mend his tattered seine, fingers moving across the weave like ballroom dancers, his peculiar eyes never left Rubaysh. “Besides Hodeida’s nearly a thousand kilometres from here. What are you doing in Bosaso?”

“There’s a very simple explanation for my being here. I believe you used to do business with the American, Mehemet Abdul Rahman, also known as Johnny Oceans.”

“Never heard of him.”

“It’s just that, well, he died recently, and a container full of goods he arranged to have shipped here from France is now stuck in my port. Maritime authorities in my country have slapped it with a ‘deceased cease order’ until I can find someone in Bosaso to whom we may deliver it.”

“Why don’t you ask his widow?”

“Ah, so you did know him then.”

“Yes, I knew him.” Mohamud dropped his gaze. “Mehemet was a good man, a Majeerteen in all but blood. He helped many fishermen along this coast retain their livelihoods, so they did not have to become badaadintu badah.”

“Really? How did he do that?”

“With small loans that we paid back within a few months. I bought a smoking machine with mine so I could process my fish for export to Dubai. I don’t know another foreigner like this man. An American who would rather help us than kill us.”

“A great man indeed, this Mehemet must have been. Did you ever work for him?”

“Yes.”

“Doing what?”

“Why do you ask so many questions?”

“It’s a rather delicate matter, and I’m not actually at liberty to discuss it. Let’s just say the contents of Mehemet’s container have led us to believe he may have been involved with organised crime.”

“Mehemet was not a gangster.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I used to run errands for him.”

“Errands?”

“To Djibouti. He would give me a package and I would take it there by boat.”

“What sort of package?”

“Always the same thing: a locked black box.”

“I see. And who was your contact in Djibouti? Who did you meet there?”

“An American Navy officer from Camp Lemonnier, who always gave me a different black box in return.”

Rubaysh’s eyes sparkled, and he began toying with his beard. “So Johnny Oceans was a spook,” he hissed. “Thank you, Mohamud. You’ve been very helpful. By the way, do you happen to know if the widow Khadija still lives at his same address, in Bender Siyaada?”

Pirates on Pinterest

Biography

Italian American Gypsy, born Miami, Florida, 1959. Keen bill fisherman and scuba diver. Formerly worked in "inconspicuous import/export" on the Florida coast. Was a member of the Devini family, Meyer Lansky’s gaming connection in 1950s Havana. Managed their casino in Malindi until his disappearance.

Has no known military record.

During the Second World War, Oceans' grandfather Capitano Luigi Salvatore was stationed in Africa Orientale Italiana, today’s Eritrea, Ethiopia, South Central Somalia and Puntland. Somaliland meanwhile belonged to the British. Capitano Salvatore’s division, the Granatieri di Savoia, under the command of Generale Guglielmo Nasi, was part of the force that conquered British Somaliland in 1940,Italy’s greatest victory in the war. In the following month, while his unit was on patrol in the Sanaag, they stumbled on a valuable antiquity and swore a blood oath never to reveal their discovery to any one. Eight months later, the entire unit got wiped out by British forces in Dongolaas Gorge. Capitano Salvatore is among the many thousands of Italians who died in the Battle of Keren in Eritrea.

In 1987 Oceans' criminal record was mysteriously wiped clean by the DEA, after which his whereabouts became unknown. Five years later he turned up managing his Uncle Bobby's casino on the Kenyan Coast. In August 1998 while scuba diving on the Malindi Watamu bank, he vanished and is presumed dead.

"The good guy's Keyser Soze..."

Ocean's always carried a small .38 snub nose hammerless 5 shot, with a Pachmayr grip and MIC holster, which he kept loaded with +p .38 hollow-point bullets: "Go in like a pencil and come out like a typewriter!"

.38 snub nose

"the last ditch belly gun"

Follow the powder...

It helps if you're an anti-communist when the DEA comes knocking

Capitano Luigi Salvatore

"Everyone in Nonno Luigi's unit took a blood oath never to reveal anything about the treasure they found in the desert. Eight months later, they all got wiped out by British forces in Dongolaas Gorge. My grandfather is among the many thousands of Italians who died in the Battle of Keren in Eritrea."

Pinterest

The Staff of Musa

"He will have the Staff of Musa and the Ring of Sulayman…Allah will keep him hidden from sight until He wills. Then he will appear and fill the Earth with justice, in the same way it was formerly filled with oppression." - Bihar Al-Anwar

Arguably Pinter's most powerful political play. But it must be read slowly, deliberately seeking out the drama in each and every murky corner of Pinter's pendulous pauses before reading the next lacerating line. What appears to be a paragraph on the page may go on for some time on stage. 'What do you think this is? It’s my finger. And this is my little finger. This is my big finger and this is my little finger. I wave my big finger in front of your eyes. Like this. And now I do the same with my little finger. I can also use both…at the same time. Like this. I can do absolutely anything I like. Do you think I’m mad? My mother did.'

Much of the chatter is one-sided but Nic is no obvious monster, as he demonstrates certain vulnerability and empathy with his victims: a husband, wife and son who are being held prisoner by an unnamed State and tortured. But these are only the tools of a seasoned bureaucratic tyrant, a ploy to make the pain of his victims less bearable when he finally tells them the truth. Or is it the truth?

One For the Road counts among my list of profoundly influential pieces of literature.